


Fix Me

by basicallymonsters



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Feelings, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Pining, Post-Canon, gratuitous staring and blushing, very peripheral bluesey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-09
Updated: 2015-11-09
Packaged: 2018-04-30 21:27:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,701
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5180345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/basicallymonsters/pseuds/basicallymonsters
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ronan is injured by a dream thing and Adam, foolishly, tries to help. There's a lot of gruff not-flirting and staring and feelings, and everyone is exasperated.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fix Me

The evening sky is shallow and watery, spread out in weak blue over glaring streetlights and fog. Ronan is watching Nino's from across the street, the contained bustle making his skin crawl. 

Compared to where he's been, real life seems a bit like an ant farm through a magnifying glass; everything too small, too important for his clumsy hands. Sometimes he forgets he's not a god outside of Cabeswater.

It's not like he hasn't been here, exactly here, a hundred times. It's just that he doesn't feel like his bones can stand to be bent just now. He feels fragile, post-dream delicate like blown glass. His friends glances - stern and silencing and disappointed - will only break off pieces.

(They're always waiting for his armour to come off, never realizing it's welded into him)

The remnants of tarry violence and snapping beaks are clinging to him like a film, throbbing in his side. It almost feels like he's still separate from his body, urging his limbs to wake up.

He does move, eventually, shrugging on something sullen and proud and squaring his shoulders.

He can pinpoint the moment that Adam notices him through the window, because he's already laser focused on the curve of his neck, has been since he pulled up. Adam indulges him terribly with a twitch of the mouth, and Ronan feels his scowl pull taut with the effort of keeping it on.

Gansey notices him next, and he does it with the fanfare of a king, sweeping hand gestures towards Ronan as he nears the front door, jangling it open.

And then he doesn't have the luxury or terror of solitude anymore. They open like a flower to let him into the circle, and he feels like a wasp among them. Blue's balancing a pitcher of iced tea on her hip, and she eyes him like she's amused.

"Did you bring me something?"

Ronan looks at her blankly.

"Any dream jewellery? Gansey told me he left you sleeping," she explains, rolling her eyes more than is strictly necessary.

"Oh yeah, I did actually bring you something," he says, enthused, patting at his pockets. The other three look baffled until he pulls his middle finger out of his empty pocket and sneers at her.

"Nothing in Cabeswater cheap enough for you, maggot."

Blue's nostrils flare, and her arm jerks like she would very much like to pour the tea over his head.

Gansey bows his head ever so gently and says "Ronan" in much the same way you might say "not at the dinner table" to someone's inappropriate uncle.

"She was fucking goading me this time, come _on_ -"

"She was making conversation," Adam interjects, exasperated. Ronan chews that over and shrugs, pushing at the table with his feet and biting savagely at his wristbands.

Blue seems to be satisfied enough with this to return to her work. Reconciling her friendship with Ronan with her commitment to defending her background is a daily battle.

The boys are left in their pocket of quiet after that, laughter and clinking glasses everywhere but between their meeting eyes. Gansey clears his throat after a beat, palming his journal open and swivelling it towards Ronan.

"So we were discussing some verses from Gwenllian," Gansey begins, and Ronan turns incredulous eyes on him.

"There's something systematic about her lunacy, I swear. There are patterns, and I'm certain they're decipherable," he finishes solemnly. Ronan shrugs, ever humouring Gansey, and thumbs through the pages. Fascination is struggling past his disinterest and he can feel Adam's eyes picking it up. He hates that he loves that, craves to be known by someone as stubbornly unknowable as Parrish.

"She's repeating herself, for sure, there's more and more - latin, she's speaking gibberish in latin too."

Gansey nods feverishly. "Yeah, yeah, she's so steeped in Cabeswater that she's more magic than woman."

Ronan hums, amused. Then he flips the book shut, turning to the half finished pizza instead, ignoring the prickle of guilt at Gansey's falling face.

"Of course," Gansey says softly, "You must be starving. How was your sleep anyway?" The unspoken question is sharp and Ronan flinches.

He chances a sidelong glance at Adam, all fanning blonde eyelashes and furrowed brow.

"Tiring," he says curtly.

He notes with some satisfaction that both Gansey and Adam look considerably concerned. They lean the slightest bit into his space with lowered voices.

"Did you bring anything back?" Adam whispers, and Ronan can see the memory of his own mangled corpse in the lines bracketing Adam's mouth.

"A fistful of feathers and a fucking gash in my side. They can't all be sick cars and puzzle boxes," Ronan sniffs, looking for all the world like he's not one tug from unravelling.

He jerks across the booth when he feels Adam's hand ghosting along his shirt. It's sticking to him, blooming dark red on heather grey.

"Jesus, Ronan," Adam says, and Ronan feels hot and twisted, the need to jump ship buzzing in his feet. He's a fighter, not a flier, but Adam is nothing if not furiously contrary, even in the way he affects people.

"I've seen worse, like, _today_. Try not to cry about it," Ronan's voice misses venomous by a couple of shades, and neither of the boys across from him seem to register it.

"We need to find a way to avoid that. You can't be afraid to go to sleep," Gansey muses.

Ronan scoffs, thinks - too late. Years too late. Dead fathers and dreamed mothers too late.

Instead he says, "It's always safe for the greywaren, remember? I can take care of myself. Or at least the fucking trees can."

The weight of their frowns is almost enough for him to say something else, wild and hurtful like shotgun fire, but he bites his tongue.

"Get up."

Ronan squints up at Adam, on his feet now, impatience written into every tense line of him.

"Why Parrish, you want a buddy for the walk to the bathroom?"

"I want to clean up the chunk missing from your fucking side. You're bleeding all over our booth," he replies, annoyed.

Ronan's face seals up, neatly pursing his lips and shuttering his eyes.

"Remember how I said I could take care of myself, maybe, oh, 20 seconds ago?"

"You've proven a thousand times that you _cannot_. Gansey picks your ass off the floor once a day, and I don't usually agree with his mothering but I know wounds- I know. How to treat wounds," he finishes lamely.

Ronan's eyes flicker to his dead ear. He feels shame swirling through him, hot and dusty, but apologies curdle on his tongue. He stands up, grumbling, hoping cooperation is enough.

Gansey watches them go curiously, fingers arched together like a politician. Ronan notices Blue orbiting the table of one, now, and sees her gaze move from Gansey to them and back again. Satisfaction boils in him as they push into the mens room together. The lighting is buzzing and white and the stalls are sickly custard yellow, but it's clean enough.

Adam gathers paper towel like he's preparing for the apocalypse, and he starts to rifle through his bag while Ronan eases up onto the counter top. He's clinging to nonchalance as best he can, steadfastly not watching Adam's plush mouth pursing or nimble hands at work.

"Take off your shirt," Adam says, sideways, eyes averted, and it occurs to Ronan that he's nervous, those fast hands shaking.

He obliges, peeling his tank top off and clenching his jaw when dried blood is ripped away with the fabric. He wads the shirt up and tosses it in the trash, waiting for Adam's protest at the wasting of fixable things. It comes, of course, but it's understated in the way he's still avoiding his eyes. He's started in on privilege and obliviousness and a disregard for hard work, and then he's glancing up at Ronan, and his eyes are stuttering down the front of him.

His gaze finds the wound after a second too long on the v of Ronan's hips, and he sucks in a breath.

"That's- that's a stab wound, Ronan," he says, a little panicked.

"Didn't I tell you that?" Ronan asks, gruff and confused.

"'Gash' and stab wound are…" Adam trails off, shaking his head, moving in to stand almost between Ronan's spread thighs.

"God. That's really deep. What-" he stops, "What did it?" 

And Ronan doesn't know why, he really doesn't, but he tells him.

"It was me. I think it was- it looked like me, anyway." He bows his head, remembering the animal look in his own eyes, hands morphing into talons and the darkness opening it's gaping maw.

"Hey if I had died, do you think that would be suicide or-" Ronan cuts off when Adam's hand makes gentle contact with the skin by his wound, pressing in.

"Does that hurt?" he asks. His face is screwed up into something beautiful.

"No," Ronan breathes, a little punch drunk from proximity. Adam still smells like gasoline, and earthy in that way that Cabeswater is after rain.

Adam turns to collect what looks like alcohol wipes from his bag, and a couple of the paper towels from his pile. He wets one and dabs carefully at the outskirts of Ronan's wound, frowning heavily.

"Could you lean back a little? This lighting is getting me nowhere."

"What, am I modelling for you?"

Adam flushes, and Ronan swallows back at him, leaning back against the mirror so the shitty overhead light glints off of juicy red.

Adam looks briefly overwhelmed, but his composure is firmly back in place after a second, and he swaps bloody paper towel for an alcohol wipe. He presses one hand to Ronan's far hip as if to steady him, and Ronan is maybe the stillest he's ever been. He's sure Adam doesn't notice what he's doing, but it's all Ronan can notice, the jut of his thumb on his hip bone feels like it's eating into him.

Adam presses into his hip harder as he works the alcohol wipe into the root of the pain. Ronan is panting, he can't help it, it's throbbing and stinging in equal measure, and his hand darts out to grab Adam's wrist.

"Wait-just. One second," Ronan says, hating that Adam has to taste the sourness of his weakness.

"Sorry, uh-" Adam steps back completely, both hands sliding away from Ronan's body. 

"I sort of figured you didn't experience pain, given the amount that you dish out," Adam jokes, sheepish.

That sort of grinds into Ronan's heart a little, and he dials his mouth to it's very sharpest setting.

"Whatever. Back to playing doctor, Parrish."

Adam frowns at him, unconvinced by his bite, but still inexplicably apologetic. So much so that Ronan reaches out for him, knuckling at his arm.

"It's not that fuckin' bad, shithead, Dream me is clearly an amateur stabber."

Adam's still frowning, but he moves back into his space, folding up some paper towel and holding it to his wound.

"I'm just going to put pressure on it before I do anything else. Dream you might be amateur, but. 

Stabbing doesn't take that much finesse."

There's a silence in which they are too close to properly look at each other, and Ronan wonders wildly why he can't hold the pressure himself. He doesn't ask, and Adam doesn't move, head tilted away from him, warm at every point of contact.

"Do you ever get tired of having Cabeswater in your head?" Adam asks.

"Do you?" Ronan challenges, and Adam shakes his head.

"No, I mean. Do you ever feel like you're just waiting to go to sleep again? Thieving has got to be better than school work. Aglionby must feel like the dream," Adam muses, and Ronan looks down at where Adam is clasping his side, blood blooming out on either side of his hand.

"I'm not a thief," Ronan rasps.

"What are you then?" Adam asks, arching one fair brow.

"I'm-" Ronan stops short, throat closing up. "I'm... waiting for you to fucking fix me so I can get back to pizza and Gwenllian decoding 101."

Adam looks disappointed, and the words "fix me" are looping in Ronan's head enticingly, even though he knows his broken shards are pointed out the way he likes them, and that Adam trying to fix him would only cut his perfect hands.

Those hands are back on him and Ronan tilts, head against the cool mirror, body arching away from the glass and into Adam's touch. The sting of disinfectant alcohol is back with a vengeance, spiralling pain into his limbs and head, burrowing into the wound and pulling. Adam is making soothing noises every time Ronan tenses, and the whole experience is warped and intimate in a messy sort of way. Ronan's thighs flexing inward to graze Adam's hips, a hand coming up to splay over his ribcage when he makes a pained little noise by accident.

It's startling when Adam breaks the silence, withdrawing from the unintentional cage of Ronan's legs and throwing the small mountain of bloodied material into the trash.

"I'd usually run cold water over it, but the placement's awkward, so I'll. Oh, whatever, fuck, I'll just dress it."

He patches the clean wound up with some sort of padded gauzy material (also from his bag) and scotch tape. Then he flounders when there's nothing to focus on but Ronan's naked torso, pricked with goosebumps and hard beneath his hands.

"You… you threw away your shirt," Adam says flatly.

Ronan nods like he's dim for mentioning it.

"I have my jacket. It's not like anyone's gonna care anyway, it's Nino's."

Adam huffs, glad for familiar ground. "Right because the riff raff walk about without things as advanced as shirts or shoes-"

"Chill Parrish. I mean, that's probably true, but I didn't mean it that way." Ronan hops down from the counter, pressing curiously at the bandaging. Adam slaps his hand away.

"Leave it alone. And let me get your jacket, Blue will rip you a new one- well. An even newer one - If you strut out into her restaurant shirtless."

"Please, it would garner business, if anything," Ronan says smugly. To his surprise Adam doesn't protest, just ducks out of the bathroom, sound puncturing the silence of the restroom when the door swings open.

Ronan is having trouble wrapping his head around what could maybe be considered flirtation, what could definitely be considered Adam near enough to kiss for such an extended period of time. 

He returns before Ronan can board that train of thought though, and the jacket is unceremoniously dumped into his arms.

He shrugs it on slowly, conscious of the splitting pain when he moves too fast, and the look on Adam's face like he's trying not to watch.

He zips it up and balance seems to shift and level out. Adam isn't desperately confused and all that's left of unfamiliar hope is an aftertaste on Ronan's tongue.

They stride out into the restaurant, resolutely not touching, Ronan's eyes shifting to systematically challenge everyone in the room. Noah has popped into being and is shadowing Blue around the restaurant, laughing when she swats at him and unknowing customers raise their eyebrows.

Adam and Ronan slip back into the table one after another, and Gansey's calculating eyes dip towards the v of bare skin where Ronan's shirt should be.

"Are you-"

"This shit isn't going to analyze itself, Dick," Ronan interrupts, launching forward to snatch the book from his hands.

Gansey changes the subject with little resistance, Glendower tipping the scales heavily away from any drama between his friends.

Ronan glances at Adam, who is glancing at him, eyes catching like velcro. 

There's something like a secret in them when they look away, whispering of gods and boys, barns and soft lashes, churches and bloody fists.

 

The wound opens and bleeds and itches and scabs over in the next couple of weeks, but he kind of likes the pangs. He likes the way Adam asks about it sometimes, smirking, remembering the ways they worry for each other, holding their secret in the twin tilts of their mouths.

**Author's Note:**

> I read the shit out of these books and then read the shit out of good fanfic and I figured it was time to jump in and write them. Thank you so much for reading !


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